Will, thank you for sharing your own journey. You are gaining awareness and that seems important.

I have just bought two books: Loving Kindness and also Buddhist Boot camp and hope they will further my own journey.

Matt – I think I understand what you mean. is it that you feel what Kevin did was Kevin’s Karma and therefore John could not concern himself other than to reinstate the appropriate forms.

I will add a little more to the story which is really fictitious but has echos of a real situation. Kevin actually feels a little envious of John and his position in the company and of his administrative skills. But there is a part of him that also aspires to being like John. Kevin has low self esteem and John had picked this up from the start. John’s desire is to help Kevin as he has a deep empathy for him. John is so good at what he does, he has been head hunted several times. He enjoys what he does and feels glad that he does it well. He is also under pressure and knows his bosses would not be happy with more shall we say, messy forms.

I do understand the idea of attachment to his 10 years -perhaps if he lived in a commune or as a monk, he may be able to release all attachment – but the reality is he uses his ego to achieve his good work which in turn pays his way in the world. Would this then cause a conflict – can one live and work in the world and still let go of all ego?

I am truly interested in the ideas – both for me and for enlightenment.

Em J

Thank you all for such insightful and interesting thoughts.

I feel the same most of the time and my job has required me to develop a way of seeing people and their lives in as non-judgemental way as I find possible. I do worry about people who have no negative thoughts because I would wonder if they go inside or are hidden and cause physical symptoms. Equally for me its not about not having negative thoughts, more what one does with them. Mindfulness can perhaps assist with this.

My difficulty would be this:

I will present a fictitious scenario here.

John has been in a job for 10 years. The job becomes too much for one person and so his bosses agree for him to have an assistant. John is one of the interviewers and helps to pick Kevin.

All is going fairly well until John is off sick for a week. While he is away, Kevin deletes some of the forms John has created and one’s that are well written and work for the task they are required for. Kevin then creates new forms, which are not very good and when John returns he feels both hurt and angry at Kevin trashing what amounts to 10 years of work.

Luckily John has them on disk but, Kevin has already implemented his and so it will be very time consuming and cause bad feeling for John to re-instate his own forms. Because kevin’s are so badly written he feels he must.

John has chosen to live in a mindful and zen style way. However he must do something about these forms and he wants to do it without causing too much aggro. He has also discovered recently that Kevin is a touchy, slightly aggressive person. What should John do?

• This reply was modified 10 years, 8 months ago by Embers Pearl.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 8 months ago by Embers Pearl.